Anna Anderson (born Franziska Schanzkowska; 16 December 1896 – 12 February 1984) was an impostor who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.Coble et al.; Godl (1998) Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II and Alexandra, was murdered along with her parents and siblings on 17 July 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg, Russia, but the location of her body was unknown until 2007.Coble et al.; Rogaev et al.
In 1920, Anderson was institutionalized in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt in Berlin. At first, she went by the name Fräulein Unbekannt (German for Miss Unknown) as she refused to reveal her identity. Later, she used the name Tschaikovsky and then Anderson. In March 1922, claims that Anderson was a Russian grand duchess received public attention. Most members of Grand Duchess Anastasia's family and those who had known her, including court tutor Pierre Gilliard, said Anderson was an impostor but others were convinced she was Anastasia. In 1927, a private investigation funded by the Tsarina's brother, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, identified Anderson as Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker with a history of mental illness. After a lawsuit lasting many years, the German courts ruled that Anderson had failed to prove she was Anastasia, but through media coverage, her claim gained notoriety.Klier and Mingay, p. 109; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 10, 53
Between 1920 and 1968, Anderson lived in Germany and the United States with various supporters and in nursing homes and sanatoria, including at least one asylum. She emigrated to the United States in 1968. Shortly before the expiration of her visa she married history professor Jack Manahan, who was later characterized as "probably Charlottesville's best-loved eccentric".Tucker Upon her death in 1984, Anderson's body was cremated, and her ashes were buried in the churchyard at Castle Seeon, Germany.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the locations of the bodies of the Tsar, Tsarina, and all five of their children were revealed. Multiple laboratories in different countries confirmed their identity through DNA testing. DNA tests on a lock of Anderson's hair and surviving medical samples of her tissue showed that her DNA did not match that of the Romanov remains or that of living relatives of the Romanovs.Stoneking et al.; Van der Kiste and Hall, p. 174 Instead, Anderson's mitochondrial DNA matched that of Karl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska.Stoneking et al. Most scientists, historians and journalists who have discussed the case accept that Anderson and Schanzkowska were the same person.Coble et al.; Gutterman; Massie, p. 249; Sieff; Sykes, p. 75
Dalldorf asylum (1920–1922) On 27 February 1920,Berlin Police report, quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 89 an unidentified young woman attempted to commit suicide in Berlin by jumping off the Bendlerstrasse bridge into the Landwehrkanal. She was rescued by a police sergeant and was admitted to the Elisabeth Hospital on Lützowstrasse. As she was without papers and refused to identify herself, she was admitted as Fräulein Unbekannt ("Miss Unknown") to a mental hospital in Dalldorf (now Wittenau, in Reinickendorf), where she remained for the next two years.Klier and Mingay, p. 93; Berlin Police report, quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 89 The unknown patient had scars on her head and bodyKing and Wilson, pp. 82–84; Massie, p. 163 and spoke German with an accent described as "Russian" by medical staff.Nurse Erna Buchholz and Dr Bonhoeffer quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, pp. 95–96
In early 1922, Clara Peuthert, a fellow psychiatric patient, claimed that the unidentified woman was Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia, one of the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II.I, Anastasia, p. 91; Klier and Mingay, p. 94; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 14 On her release, Peuthert told Russian émigré Captain Nicholas von Schwabe that she had seen Tatiana at Dalldorf.King and Wilson, p. 91; Klier and Mingay, p. 94, Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 16–17 Schwabe visited the asylum and accepted the woman as Tatiana.Kurth, Anastasia, p. 21; Welch, p. 103 Schwabe persuaded other émigrés to visit the unknown woman, including Countess Zinaida Tolstoy, a friend of Tsarina Alexandra. Eventually Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, a former lady-in-waiting to the Tsarina, visited the asylum with Tolstoy. On seeing the woman, Buxhoeveden declared "She's too short for Tatiana,"Klier and Mingay, p. 95; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 25; Massie, p. 163 and left convinced the woman was not a Russian grand duchess.I, Anastasia, p. 93; Hall, p. 340; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 25 A few days later, the unknown woman noted, "I did not say I was Tatiana."Klier and Mingay, p. 95; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 26
A nurse at Dalldorf, Thea Malinovsky, claimed years after the patient's release from the asylum that the woman had told her she was another daughter of the Tsar, Anastasia, in the autumn of 1921.Kurth, Anastasia, p. 12 However, the patient herself could not recall the incident.I, Anastasia, p. 91 Her biographers either ignore Malinovsky's claim,Klier and Mingay, pp. 93–94, just describes Peuthert's claim. or weave it into their narrative.King and Wilson, pp. 88–89; Massie, p. 163
Germany and Switzerland (1922–1927) By May 1922, the woman was believed by Peuthert, Schwabe, and Tolstoy to be Anastasia, although Buxhoeveden said there was no resemblance.I, Anastasia, p. 93; Klier and Mingay, p. 95 Nevertheless, the woman was taken out of the asylum and given a room in the Berlin home of Baron Arthur von Kleist, a Russian émigré who had been a police chief in Russian Poland before the fall of the Tsar. The Berlin policeman who handled the case, Detective Inspector Franz Grünberg, thought that Kleist "may have had ulterior motives, as was hinted at in émigré circles: if the old conditions should ever be restored in Russia, he hoped for great advancement from having looked after the young woman."Letter from Grünberg to his superior, Councillor Goehrke, quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 92
She began calling herself Anna Tschaikovsky,Klier and Mingay, p. 96; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 53; Berlin police records, quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 112 choosing "Anna" as a short form of "Anastasia",I, Anastasia, p. 98; Klier and Mingay, p. 96 although Peuthert "described her everywhere as Anastasia".Grünberg's notes, quoted by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 112 Tschaikovsky stayed in the houses of acquaintances, including Kleist, Peuthert, a poor working-class family called Bachmann, and at Inspector Grünberg's estate at Funkenmühle, near Zossen.I, Anastasia, pp. 100–112; Klier and Mingay, pp. 97–98; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 29–63 At Funkenmühle, Grünberg arranged for the Tsarina's sister, Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, to meet Tschaikovsky, but Irene did not recognize her.Klier and Mingay, pp. 97–98; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 51–52; Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, pp. 103, 106–107; Welch, p. 108 Grünberg also arranged a visit from Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, but Tschaikovsky refused to speak to her, and Cecilie was left perplexed by the encounter.I, Anastasia, p. 115; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 64; Klier and Mingay, p. 98; Massie, p. 168 Later, in the 1950s, Cecilie signed a declaration that Tschaikovsky was Anastasia,Kurth, Anastasia, p. 343; Massie, p. 168; Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 116 but Cecilie's family disputed her statement and implied that she had dementia.Kurth, Anastasia, p. 343
By 1925, Tschaikovsky had developed a tuberculous infection of her arm, and she was placed in a succession of hospitals for treatment. Sick and near death, she lost significant weight.Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 84–85; Massie, p. 172; Welch, p. 110 She was visited by the Tsarina's groom of the chamber Alexei Volkov; Anastasia's tutor Pierre Gilliard; his wife, Alexandra Tegleva, who had been Anastasia's nursemaid; and the Tsar's sister, Grand Duchess Olga. Although they expressed sympathy, if only for Tschaikovsky's illness, and made no immediate public declarations, eventually they all denied she was Anastasia.Klier and Mingay, pp. 99–103; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 99–124; Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, pp. 135–169 In March 1926, she convalesced in Lugano with Harriet von Rathlef at the expense of Grand Duchess Anastasia's great-uncle, Prince Valdemar of Denmark. Valdemar was willing to offer Tschaikovsky material assistance, through the Danish ambassador to Germany, Herluf Zahle, while her identity was investigated.Klier and Mingay, p. 91; Kurth, Anastasia, p. 102 To allow her to travel, the Berlin Aliens Office issued her with a temporary certificate of identity as "Anastasia Tschaikovsky", with Grand Duchess Anastasia's personal details.Kurth, Anastasia, p. 130 After a quarrel with Rathlef, Tschaikovsky was moved to the Stillachhaus Sanatorium at Oberstdorf in the Bavarian Alps in June 1926, and Rathlef returned to Berlin.Klier and Mingay, p. 104; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 130–134; Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, pp. 180–187
At Oberstdorf, Tschaikovsky was visited by Tatiana Melnik, née Botkin. Melnik was the niece of Serge Botkin, the head of the Russian refugee office in Berlin, and the daughter of the imperial family's personal physician, Eugene Botkin, who had been murdered by the Bolsheviks alongside the Tsar's family in 1918. Tatiana Melnik had met Grand Duchess Anastasia as a child and had last spoken to her in February 1917.Kurth, Anastasia, p. 138 To Melnik, Tschaikovsky looked like Anastasia, even though "the mouth has changed and coarsened noticeably, and because the face is so lean, her nose looks bigger than it was."Tatiana Melnik's declaration on oath, 1929, quoted (in negligibly different translations) by Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 193; King and Wilson, p. 172 and Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 141–142 In a letter, Melnik wrote: "Her attitude is childlike, and altogether she cannot be reckoned with as a responsible adult, but must be led and directed like a child. She has not only forgotten languages, but has in general lost the power of accurate narration ... even the simplest stories she tells incoherently and incorrectly; they are really only words strung together in impossibly ungrammatical German ... Her defect is obviously in her memory and eyesight."Quoted (in two negligibly different translations) by Massie in p. 169 and Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, p. 195 Melnik declared that Tschaikovsky was Anastasia, and supposed that any inability on her part to remember events and her refusal to speak Russian was caused by her impaired physical and psychological state.Massie, p. 170; Krug von Nidda in I, Anastasia, pp. 197–198 Either inadvertently through a sincere desire to "aid the patient's weak memory",Gilliard, Pierre (1929) La Fausse Anastasie quoted in Krug von Nidda, p. 198 or as part of a deliberate charade,Godl (1998) Melnik coached Tschaikovsky with details of life in the imperial family.
Castle Seeon (1927)